Weddingbee boards

In an early post I mentioned the vow Mr. Coffee Cup and I made about not telling anyone about our upcoming wedding, so I thought about sharing a bit more about the situation.

I’m born and raised Mexican and raised catholic. I’m not going into details but neither me nor my boyfriend share the religious belief our families have. A few years back Mr. Cc and I were talking about if we ever got married we don’t really want to have a religious ceremony, which conflicts the wedding plan a little.

See, in Mexico there are 2 separated ceremonies: the legal one and the religious one. Given the importance of religion in our culture most people think of the religious ceremony as the ‘real’ one, while the legal one is considered as mere paperwork. I‘ve always think the legal ceremony is the important one, you know… it’s the contract that certifies your civil union, while the religious one is just words (at least for a non believer). So we’ll have a civil union ceremony and unlike the tradition (where you go to the city hall and sign the papers any day before making a big deal out of the religious mass) we’ll take the city hall judge to our venue and have an ‘American-like’ (like the ones I’m used to watch on TV, sorry but that’s my reference) ceremony there.

The thing is, I’m sure it’ll be a huge deal to my parents and future in-laws, us not having a religious ceremony, my mom may actually say we’re not really married, but it’s important for me having my way in this, and we feel it’s a bit disrespectful to stand in a church and say a bunch of stuff we don’t believe in. Moreover catholic weddings involve a lot of pre and post-ceremony counseling, taking classes and therapy (have you watched the movie ‘License to Wed’?, almost as crazy as the things I think my mom would make us do).

Another good reason (although I could never mention it to my mom) it’s the money we’ll save by not having a religious wedding. It’s a tradition here to fill the church with flowers, plus the price for the church itself, also there’s a flower bouquet you should leave in the church, there’s this part of the ceremony that involves a lasso and gold coins, which are not cheap.

I must admit I don’t feel at all guilty by not following the tradition, I like to think it’ll make my wedding different. Even though, we’re trying to delay the ‘telling the parents’ part so we can have a few months with no drama.

Do you have any family traditions it’s important to honor in your wedding? Do you have a tradition you don’t feel like following?

@blayne7: We're not having godparents either, and that's a big deal in the religious ceremony, we're actually having bridesmaids and groomsmen american style, not being the typical ceremony we can really play with it.